As an art for generating a digest video using a recorded video stream, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2000-261754 discloses the following art. In accordance with a standard for an importance degree determined by a user, a scene to be included in a digest video is specified among scenes included in the video stream. A portion of the video stream within a predetermined range that includes the specified scene is extracted from the recorded video stream to generate the digest video.
This enables the user to watch only an important portion in a short time period without reproducing the whole recorded video stream.
Also, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-142188 discloses the following art. A template is preset for specifying a portion extracted from a recorded video stream, for each scene included in the video stream. When a user selects a desired template, a video stream is specified based on the selected template. By extracting a portion from the specified video stream, a digest video is generated.
This enables the user to watch a desired scene in a short time period by selecting a desired template.